Commercial Break

Once a week a truck driver drove down our street. Stuck to the sides of the semi were two television screens. Massive plasma bastards. The screens always promoted something new: shoes, video games, the dentist running for president, carrying wisdom teeth in a bag. The truck driver drove all over the city and whenever he passed down our street, we stopped to watch a commercial, glad to see an ad, to wave the man onto that which the route acknowledged. When the truck driver’s wife grew sick, he drove slower. He played ads for cancer, for grave sites, lifeless skies, forever blues. A seagull soaked in oil. How to know that sorrow. One day, he drove down our street and his televisions were draped in black cloth. We wheeled our televisions against our windows, out into our yards, our screens facing his way, so that when he passed, he saw canyons and snowfall, galaxies and beams, sunsets and moose. None of us had ever seen him drive that slow.